Wormholes and Gates​

Wormholes

Overview

Humanity knew that wormholes were mathematically possible long before they travelled to the stars, but it was not until many centuries later that the technology caught up with the maths. In the early days of wormhole travel, voyages to other star systems were inefficient, horrifyingly expensive, and fraught with danger.

The main issue with early wormholes was that they were all unbound, meaning that although the point of origin was more or less anchored in space, the destination end was free to wander. This meant that a ship travelling through the wormhole would experience increasing turbulence, and even if it survived transit it might not arrive exactly where the crew expected it to. The wastage caused by using these primitive wormholes was considerable, and it was not until humanity encountered the Lem Bataan that the problem was solved.

When humans first made contact with the Lem Bataan Confederation, they were extremely pleased to be offered access to academic information on the formation and manipulation of vastly more stable wormholes. The proposed methods relied on two separate but related technologies: Gravity Needle Generators, and a gate network.

After the establishment of the gate network wormhole travel in general became incredibly safe. The introduction of gates also allowed the development of communications technologies such as the nexus, and military applications such as interdiction. The gate revolution contributed in no small part to the development of the entire Imperial Navy.

Unbound Wormholes

An unbound wormhole is one which is projected into the destination space without any means of anchoring the terminus. The terminus is therefore free to wander, and may end up some distance from the intended destination.

The longer the distance a wormhole spans, the more tumultuous and unstable it will be. This of course means that long-distance, unbound wormholes are all but impassable.

Bound Wormholes

A bound wormhole is one which is projected into a destination space where a suitable facility can anchor the terminus in its intended location. Such a facility might be a station or a gate, depending on the technology of the society in question.

Because the terminus of the wormhole is anchored, and not free to wander, the passage is stabilised. This makes a bound wormhole incredibly safe to use, even over vast distances.

Gravity Needle Generators

A gravity needle generator (GNG) is the device which drives the formation of a wormhole. It is the basis of all Imperial Combine wormhole technology, and virtually all of the known major races implement the same idea along similar lines.

When powered, a GNG emits a highly focused, acutely asymptotic gravitational distortion, between the location of the GNG and the destination space. This distortion, known as a 'zero thread', can be considered for all practical purposes a two-dimensional singularity, contradiction-in-terms though that may be. It is the zero thread which extrudes the intervening space between origin and destination into a usable wormhole.

GNGs were a blessing to the intrepid explorers of humanity's early forays into the galaxy. The system allowed a relatively stable wormhole to be plucked from normal space, using far less energy than any previously tested technologies. While still unbound, wormholes created by GNGs had far more inherent stability than any previous human attempts, and tended to wander less at the destination end.

Although many large-frame vessels are capable of creating an unbound wormhole with onboard GNGs, it is far preferable to utilise a wormhole which has been gravitationally bound by a GNG mounted in a gate at the destination space. Zero threads have a tendency to wander if unbound (the ultimate cause of turbulence in unbound wormholes). The longer the thread, the more turbulent the motion at the wormhole's destination aperture.

Imperial GNGs use large quantities of xtryllium, which is difficult to manufacture and accordingly expensive. Heavy use of the GNG will eventually burn out the xtryllium coils.

Enmeshment Events

A very dangerous hazard in wormhole travel is the threat of enmeshment. This occurs when matter which already occupies the destination space becomes physically entangled with the matter of a craft leaving a wormhole.

Because a wormhole brings two different spaces together — the point of origin and the destination space — anything within the two volumes can potentially come into contact with the event horizon. At this boundary, co-located objects essentially occupy different instances of the same space. On separating from the event horizon, they may remain co-located.

Becoming enmeshed with matter in the destination space can have catastrophic consequences for starships.

Wormhole Trivia

The stability of an unbound wormhole is inversely proportional to its length. Longer wormholes are more likely to damage a ship.

The energy requirement for opening a wormhole, surprisingly, is proportional to the diameter of its aperture.

No matter what mass transits through a wormhole, the energy requirements of keeping it open will not vary.

The location error for an unbound wormhole's exit point is proportional to the length of the wormhole. Longer wormholes are less likely to terminate where one expects them to.

The mouth of a modern wormhole will always appear to be a flat disc, no matter from what angle it is viewed.

Gates

Overview

Gates can be viewed as purpose-built GNG platforms which are intended to act in pairs; one acts as a point of origin for a wormhole, the other acts to attract and stabilise it. A single gate can project an unbound wormhole into a destination space, but this is a much less favoured option if a safer, bound wormhole is possible.

When a wormhole is created from origin point A, and projected to destination point B, the stability of the wormhole is inversely proportional to the distance between A and B. The greater the distance, the more violent the passage will be, to the point at which a ship could be destroyed in transit. Additionally, the distance between A and B is proportional to the margin of error for the achieved exit point. In other words, the greater the distance travelled, the less likely the traveller is to end up precisely where they intended.

​By attracting the terminus of an incoming wormhole, and applying the correct harmonics, a destination gate can address these issues in one fell swoop. The zero thread which extrudes the wormhole is attracted towards the destination gate, which 'tightens' the conduit and conforms its harmonics.

Gates are also able to ensure that an incoming wormhole opens in clear space, greatly reducing the chances of an enmeshment event. If there is too much matter local to the wormhole's available destination points, a gate can veto the incoming wormhole and instruct travellers to seek another destination point.

The establishment of the entire Imperial gate network took more than a century, but few would argue that it was time wasted. By projecting short, unbound wormholes with GNGs, and sending construction vessels to the other side, it was possible to gradually leap-frog the resources needed for the completion of destination gates between distant star systems.

Use in Communications

Gates support a large number of communications channels, and can relay data to each other either incidentally. This is usually done through wormholes which are opened for other purposes, or by opening micro-wormholes for a specific data transmission. Packages of data sent through a gate are commonly referred to as databursts.​Virtually every modern gate also supports a nexus in the star system where it is located. This is a dense mesh of micro-wormholes which permeates the local space, and allows real-time communications and sensor reads across interplanetary distances. Without this, tactical communications and sensor reads would suffer significant time lags.

Use in Combat: Interdiction

Gates can be used to gain a significant tactical advantage during fleet combat, by preventing nearby ships from opening wormholes of their own.The GNG at the heart of every gate is capable of generating a resonance field that will force other GNGs in the vicinity to stall.

A gate can therefore be used to interdict against enemy fleets jumping away from combat, by interfering with any large-frame vessels attempting to open their own wormholes.

​As has been proven time and again in combat, interdiction is a double-edged sword. It also does nothing to prevent incoming wormholes which originate beyond the interdiction radius.